


Crumple Zones

by renquise



Category: Motorcity
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied or Off-stage Rape/Non-con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-02
Updated: 2012-09-02
Packaged: 2017-11-13 09:20:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/501938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/renquise/pseuds/renquise
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Julie knows that Deluxe has its hidden things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crumple Zones

**Author's Note:**

> For [this](http://motorkink.dreamwidth.org/272.html?thread=526096#cmt526096) art-inspired prompt at the kinkmeme, though this really ended up being about Julie.

Julie was young when she'd first started slipping away from her pod to explore Deluxe. She had always been a night owl. The first time she’d tried it, she got lost, and it was finally one of the KaneCo employees who found her, picking her up in his arms and amiably entertaining her protests that he wasn’t supposed to see her, because she had her invisibility cloak on. 

Julie was much better at it, now that she was older. Claire sometimes came along, saying, oh my god, we’re going to get in so much trouble, but mostly, Julie went by herself. She liked finding Deluxe’s hidden passages and corners, the places that no one was supposed to see anymore, least of all Abraham Kane’s daughter. 

She was never quite brave enough to go all the way down, not yet, but even Deluxe has its hidden things.

Julie remembers the first time she ran across KaneCo security forces rounding up protesters, watching from the shadows and thinking, no, this isn’t right. She had come home to Dad that night, and Dad had hugged her tight and said, where were you, I was so worried, there are all these damn trouble-makers out there right now, and you don’t know what they’ll do. Julie had hugged him back, but she lay awake for a long time, that night. 

She started ranging out further, after that. The borders of Deluxe are wide, and there’s a lot to see.

Tonight, though, she’s just trying to get back to her room before it gets too late. 

It’s already past curfew, and most of Deluxe is grey and quiet, the lights dimmed. There's a path that cuts through one of the cadet blocks that leads her right back to her pod, avoiding anywhere that she could run into her dad— it was late, sure, but you never knew.

Her footsteps echo inside the empty cadet gym, the high ceilings white and cold. Everything about Deluxe was carefully designed to be soothing, all clean, rounded edges, but the big rooms made her shiver, sometimes. 

There’s a sound, and Julie freezes, looking around. It sounds like a person, but there’s nothing but stillness in the gym, the training mats neatly stacked and the weights resting in their cradles. She listens carefully for a few more moments. Still nothing. She takes a step—and there’s the sound again. 

There's a sick retching sound coming from the locker room, audible through the closed door. 

Every rational instinct tells her that she should just leave— she might be intruding, it's really late, and she's definitely, definitely not supposed to be here— but she can't just walk by and pretend she hasn't heard anything. She knocks on the locker room door. 

"Hello?" she calls. There's no response. When she presses her ear to the door, all she can hear is harsh, shaky breathing. She hesitates, but pushes the door open slowly, peeking inside the night-dimmed room. 

There's a broad-shouldered figure in the cadet uniform hunched over the sink. The acrid smell of vomit hasn't been scrubbed away by the air purifiers yet, and Julie wonders for a moment if it's just another cadet who's gotten hold of illegal ethanol and decided to experiment with it, rather than the more legal intoxicants.

She's about to inch back out the door and leave the poor guy to his regrets, but then she notices his shoulders shaking. 

His arms look as if they're barely holding him up, as if he would just collapse onto the floor if he let go. The guy takes a shuddering breath and shifts his weight slowly to free up a hand, enough to turn on the tap. It takes him a few tries, because his hand keeps on trembling and slipping. The movement looks like it's painful, like there's something very, very wrong. 

Finally, he turns it on and bends forward to splash water onto his face. The uneven sound of his breathing is quiet, until something like a sob tears out of him. It's the kind of sound you make when you're trying so hard not to break down completely, where once it starts, it seems like you can't stop. It's painful thing to hear, and it reminds Julie way too much of her mom's funeral. Julie takes a step forward and calls out softly, "Hey, are you okay," even though it's a stupid question, because things are obviously so, so very not okay.

This time— this time, he hears her, and he spins around, his eyes wide and frantic in the dark.

With a jerk, Julie realizes that she knows the guy.

"Mike?" she says, the shocked sound of her voice too loud in the empty room.

There's a moment of relief in Mike's eyes before he tenses up again, his hand pulling at his uniform and trying to put it back in order, but his hand is shaking too hard, and he keeps on fumbling at the open closures. He's a mess, Julie realizes, his usually clean-pressed uniform torn and stained, its catches hanging open. 

Julie’s trying to put this all together, trying to make it all fit into some kind of sense, but she keeps on getting stuck on the fact that it’s so wrong to see Mike like this, his confidence and easy grace broken down into jagged lines.

Julie hasn't known Mike for all that long— hasn't known anyone all that long, except for Claire— but she likes Mike, likes his sincere, open smile. At first, she had only known Mike by sight: her dad's golden boy, destined to give his all for Deluxe, crisp and clean in his uniform. 

She hadn't really met him, not face to face, not until Mike had caught her sneaking around the corridors one night after curfew. He'd blinked a bit, and Julie had a moment's panic that he was going to drag her back to her dad, and that her dad would be way too scared to let her do anything ever again. But Mike's hair was ruffled and sticking up on one side, his bare feet sticking out of his pyjama bottoms, and he really didn't cut all that intimidating a figure.

"Uh, hi," Mike had said after a few seconds, giving her an awkward wave. "Can't sleep either?"

They spent a few hours tucked into the corner of the half-lit corridor, talking. When he asked who she was, she just said, "Julie," and lied clumsily about her family. ("Don't tell anyone who you are," Julie remembers her dad saying when she was six years old, his strong arms around her. "There's some bad people out there, and I'm just trying to keep my little girl safe.") Mike didn't press, but accepted it with a smile and a trusting shrug.

Julie learned that Mike was her age, that he was a bit of an insomniac, that he liked old, corny movies, that he was an orphan, and that he thought Mr. Kane was a great man.

She learned, too, that Mike needed to move like other people need air— after a bit, he stood up and said, "Hey, wanna see something cool?" 

They went down a twist of hallway that she'd never had the chance to explore, and up, and up. At one point, they had to scramble through an older sector closed off for repairs, and Julie felt her heart pump pure adrenalin as they hopped over the dangerous gaps. When she looked at Mike, he had the same exhilarated smile as her as he leapt from beam to beam, light on his feet. 

They finally went through a hatch, and then they were at the top of one of the tallest buildings in Deluxe. Sure, she'd been higher in her dad's buildings, but this was different. The night air was cool on her skin, intoxicating and free, and Mike was at her side.

She realized, after, that with her authorization codes and a little wrangling, she could find Mike's room, and find a quicker path to it, besides. He never asked how she found him, or why she always came in the dead of night, knocking on his door and sneaking in with a giggle, saying, "Cadet Mike Chilton, you are needed at once to go see a really awesome secret passage," to which Mike would grin and salute smartly before responding, "Miss Julie, it would be my pleasure as a protector of Deluxe to accompany you on this vital mission." And he wouldn't be entirely kidding, either. Mike believes in what he's doing, in protecting people. 

It's easy, being around Mike. He's fearless and bright, and she doesn't have to be anyone but herself.

And now, it's all falling apart. 

"Julie?" Mike says, finally. His voice sounds awful, all torn up and hoarse. He gives her a wide-eyed, shocky stare, before he darts his eyes away, staring at the floor. His gangly legs tremble under him, and the arm he has braced on the sink can't seem to hold him up anymore. He sinks down to the floor, his legs folding under him.

Julie is at his side before she knows what's happening. Her hands hover over his shoulders, not knowing if she should touch him or not. "Oh, god. Oh god, Mike—" She can hear her voice going thin with panic.

"It's okay, it's okay, I'm fine," Mike says in his wrecked voice. He pulls together a half-finished disaster of a smile, re-opening the split in his swollen lip. He's trying to comfort her while he's sitting there shaking and so obviously not fine, not okay, and Julie wants to shake him.

There's something other than the smell of vomit in the air, something carnal that Julie must have refused to acknowledge. She can't think about it right now, not if she doesn't want to break down too.

Julie reaches out slowly and brings her hand to his cheek. Mike tracks the movement of her hand, something skittish and utterly not-Mike in the way he brings his hand up, as if to stop her, but then curls it against his chest. 

She stands up, instead, and takes a poly-weave handkerchief out of her vest pockets, running it under the tepid water from the faucet. She sits down and wipes at the tear tracks and the— the other things on his face. Mike closes his eyes and lets out a shuddering sigh.

"Sorry, I must be a mess," Mike rasps out, leaning into her hand.

"Rough night?" she says, for a lack of anything else to say.

He laughs. It's a brittle sound. "Yeah. Yeah, rough night." He puts his hand on hers, as if to reassure himself that she's there. Julie tries not to notice the torn, bleeding edge around his fingernails.

“Do you want me to get a medic? Mike, you need to tell someone about this, I can’t—” Julie stutters to a stop.

Mike shakes his head. “I’m okay,” he says, but he still doesn’t look at her, and it sounds more and more like he’s trying to convince himself.

It suddenly seems more important than ever to leave this echoing room and its sterile blue tiles. 

"Let's get out of here, okay?" Julie says. She puts his arm around her shoulders and stands up, staggering a bit with his weight. Mike isn't super-tall, and he still has the gangly, half-grown look of someone still growing into his limbs, but he's all lean muscle. Mike tries to take his weight off her shoulders, gathering his feet under him and pushing himself up on the counter, a breath hissing out from between his teeth. He must've had his arm wrenched up behind his back, her mind supplies, and she feels sick.

There's an edge of bruising around his neck where his jacket still gapes open, and more around his wrists. That can't be the last of it, either. She's watched him from afar when her dad brought her to watch the cadets practicing, and Mike fights beautifully, joyfully, with little regulation precision and restraint. It must have taken some doing to bring him down. 

It's a slow, awkward three-legged stumble through the dimmed corridors, but they make it to his room. 

She can feel him relax minutely when the door closes behind them. He untangles his arm from around her shoulders and puts a hand on the wall to steady himself. After a few breaths, he makes his slow, painful way to the bathroom door.

"Do— do you want me to stay?" Julie asks.

There's a long silence, Mike leaning heavily on the doorframe leading to the bathroom. "Would you mind?" he says, finally, not quite looking at her. 

Julie shakes her head emphatically and sits down on the floor, leaning up against Mike's bed.

He stays in the shower a long time. Julie paces back and forth. Mike's room is ten steps wide. 

When Mike finally comes out, his skin is scrubbed red. She can't help but notice the vulnerable arch of his bare feet under his loose pyjama pants. 

"Hey," he says. Again, he gives her a smile, but it doesn’t last long.

He steps-falls into her arms, clutching on to her, and she holds him so tight. The back of his neck is hot, and she runs her hand over its curve, petting his damp hair. Mike doesn't make much sound when he cries: only shuddering gasps that wrench themselves out of his frame. Julie can’t do anything but wrap her arms around his chest, and try not to fall apart.

Julie finally maneuvers them over to the small bed. Mike curls up under the sheets. Julie lies down beside him, within arm’s reach.

It's a long night.

She turns Mike's alarm off, but he wakes up a few hours later anyways, sitting up with a jerk, his breathing quick. She blinks, waking up out of her doze, and reaches out to catch his elbow. 

"Mike," she says, still half-asleep.

"I've got to get up, I can't let Mr. Kane down—" he says, panicking, and Julie wants to cry and to ask, if her dad's so great, why did this happen to you, why did he let this happen. 

"Mike. Just— just take a break for today, okay? It'll be fine. Hey, I'll go get us some breakfast. How do you like your nutritious Kane Cubes?" she says with forced cheer. He calms under her hand, calms until he's too still, his usual restless need for motion aborted to jerky half-movements.

“I can’t, Julie, I can’t—” he whispers, but his shoulders curve in on themselves, and he lets Julie tugs him back down. 

Exhaustion takes hold of him once again, and it’s a relief to have him fall asleep again.

Julie keys in Tooley's security code to Mike's terminal, clears him for a sick day, and sits back down with her back to the bed. She doesn't know what to do. She wants to call Claire, to have Claire's familiar, loyal presence at her back, but she can't. She wants to call her dad, like she's five again and needs him to kiss her scraped-up knees, but she can't trust him with this. (Can't trust him with much, anymore.)

It's just her and Mike, trying so hard to hold it together.

Mike is back at work the day after. He's almost too much of himself, Cadet Mike Chilton turned up to eleven, bold and confident and hanging together in hastily-repaired bits.

A month later, Mike leaves for Motorcity. 

Julie hears about the whole destruction debacle, hears about Mike getting dragged back to Deluxe and shut up in the correctional facility, hears her father rant and rave about betrayal in his office. She hears about Mike slipping out of the facility, god knows how. 

Mike calls her before he leaves, saying, Jules, I can't do this anymore, and she throws on a disguise and leads him through the passages she knows, going down as far as she can go with her passcodes, before he tells her to turn back and plunges on into the darkness. 

She watches his back recede through the tangle of wiring and feels something tip: a balance, hung heavy with frustration and impotence, with love and loyalty.

—

It takes her weeks to set up an excuse to go missing for a few days, but she tracks him down, finds him living with an old man, his hands in the guts of a ancient car. 

"Hey, hot-shot," she says, her heart tight inside her chest. "Are you going to teach me how to fix up one of those, too?"

He jumps and almost hits his head on the open hood, but he's smiling. "Julie! Jules. What are you doing here—" 

He hugs her tight, and he seems— okay. Brittle and betrayed and reckless, but okay.

I want to fight against Kane, he says that night, sitting on the porch of the old, battered garage. The practical part of her says that it'll never work, that it's suicidal, that they might not be able to change anything at all. 

But she says, yes, let’s go.


End file.
